


Dissonance

by renaissance



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Music, Social Media, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-11 03:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12926628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/renaissance
Summary: Remus searches for solace in all the likely places, but somehow he keeps coming back to Sirius Black. Featuring sad acoustic indie, spearmint gum, and irresponsible usage of social media.





	Dissonance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mustntgetmy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mustntgetmy/gifts).



> Here's my work for R/S Small Gifts 2017! It's my second year participating, and I had so much fun writing this piece. Here's the [Dreamwidth post](https://small-gifts.dreamwidth.org/234890.html), and for the sake of completeness, my beginning notes as they appear there:
> 
> There’s kind of a funny story about this! I was halfway through writing this fic, early in November, when I realised that I had been vaguely inspired by a fic I’d read several weeks previously, as part of the R/S Games. Then the R/S Games fics were revealed, and I found out that the person who wrote the fic that had inspired me was also the person who’s prompt I’d claimed for Small Gifts. I feel a little ridiculous about this, but here it is; mustntgetmy, I hope you enjoy this fic, in which several things happen, including Remus and Sirius making music together :)

At a school like Hogwarts, a repurposed and much-renovated mediaeval castle, solace was hard to find. It hid behind the bleachers in the stadium where the cricket team trained; in amongst the trees of the forest around the school grounds, off the path the students were forced to jog, once a week whatever the weather; in the rooms of the castle which, if asked to locate on a school map, most students would not be able to find.

Remus was not a music student, but then very few in sixth form were. Nevertheless, he took to the music rooms more and more these days in some vain attempt to find the fleeting solace he so desperately needed. It was perhaps the furthest thing from easy, to attend a very expensive boys’ school on the back of a scholarship that covered all those expenses, and students holding such scholarships did not lend themselves to popularity. Remus could count easily on the fingers of one hand the number of friends he had. Most of them did not go to Hogwarts, and the rest were not music students, so Remus figured it was safe for him to come here.

The music rooms were in Hogwarts Castle’s old armoury, windows still iron-barred over the glass and one on either side of a courtyard. This was one of the more ancient, overgrown parts of the castle. Stone quarried locally had worn away beneath centuries of students’ feet and by the walls allowed itself to be host to generations of ivy. They had tried to light this part of the castle—there were empty bakelite brackets cornering the courtyard, and one of them even housed the remnants of a long-blown light bulb. These days, especially at night, it was impossible to tell when walking through the courtyard whether one might bump into a bench or who else might be present, passing.

This, of course, was an extra precaution—Remus came here only at night.

He was by no means an accomplished musician; learning the piano as a child gave him a solid grounding in the simplest of Mozart’s sonatas, and now, self-taught, he struggled with Bach’s counterpoint and Chopin’s nuance. It was one of Bach’s French Suites that finally laid him low. On a moonless evening Remus sat in the dark, only a booklight stolen from the chapel choir to light his sheet music, and lay on the floor beneath the piano. He did not know how long he lay there, only that too much time passed, lost in the empty ticking of his old mechanical watch, and that it was now so late that he would be disciplined for sneaking about after curfew, and definitely tired enough to fall asleep in class tomorrow.

And then, music, carrying across the courtyard. A single voice and an acoustic guitar, a song that Remus could not name because he did not listen to popular music. But he knew enough of music to tell that this was beautiful, lyrical playing, notes plucked instead of chords strummed, and a haunting, high-pitched melody. The singer was a tenor, a mature voice, by the sounds of it. Someone in the chapel choir? Remus had left the chapel choir in third form as soon as he worked out it made him more of a target for bullies.

This song was sung by someone who knew what that felt like. “They took your life apart,” the boy sang, “and called your failures art—they were wrong, though—they won’t know—‘till tomorrow—”

Remus covered his eyes with the heels of his palms, in case he wanted to cry. He should have known better than this. He didn’t cry anymore. Neither did he move, though, perfectly still in case he disturbed his the solace his faceless companion was here seeking. It felt cheap, almost, to profit so wholly off someone else’s sadness, but the miserable music made Remus feel more content than he had in some time. For as long as he could stay awake, Remus listened to this boy playing his sad songs, and after that he fell asleep, there on the rough carpeted floor of the music rooms.

 

**R.J.** @wolfboyrj  
can anyone help me identify these lyrics? “to die by your side, the pleasure, the privilege is mine” ???

**PETE** @ppettigrew16  
@wolfboyrj some depressing bastard

**R.J.** @wolfboyrj  
@ppettigrew16 thanks. you really are the fount of all knowledge

**Lily Evans** @lilyinbloom3  
@wolfboyrj @ppettigrew16 It’s the Smiths! “There is a light that never goes out” - very sad! I much prefer “Vicar in a tutu”

 

These were the other things Remus did for solace: he ran, sometimes, even though it was no longer mandatory for sixth form students; he went to the highest tower in Hogwarts Castle and shouted; he met Sirius Black after the cricket team was done practising and they snogged in the sweet spot behind the bleachers where no-one could see you from either the castle or the pitch.

“Spearmint,” Sirius said. “Why _spearmint_.”

“I like spearmint.” Remus didn’t feel that he needed to defend himself any more than that.

“It’s disgusting.”

But Sirius kissed Remus again anyway, and he was one to talk about disgusting, sweaty from fielding and his knees digging into the muddy grass. He had the good grace to put down his jersey for Remus to sit on so his painstakingly pressed trousers didn’t get dirty; it was a small concession, because Sirius had expressed on more than one occasion his desire to mess Remus up—whatever that meant. This was bad enough, Remus with his back pressed uncomfortably to one of the poles holding up the bleachers and Sirius kissing with way too much of his teeth.

“You’d think,” Remus said, in between kisses, “that we could find some place better to do this.”

“You could find better gum to chew than spearmint, but here we are.”

“How about the Astronomy Tower?” Remus suggested. The Astronomy Tower was a relic of the school’s origins as a genuine mediaeval fortress, and maybe it had once belonged to spies, maybe there really had been an astronomer in residence, but now it was just a turret fenced off by a highly ineffectual gate where pigeons came to roost and shit and not much else. It was windy, but it was more private than the bleachers. Less muddy. This felt like some kind of masochistic exhibitionism.

Sirius just scowled. “Astronomy Tower. You’re so boring. What other suggestions do you have up your sleeve? The music rooms?”

Remus had thought about it—on several occasions—but, no. The music rooms were his and his alone. No—his and the sad boy with the guitar’s. Something else Remus thought about a lot was whether he could do better than Sirius Black. Sirius was posh, which Remus didn’t really mind, but Sirius was the kind of posh that didn’t care about anyone else, aloof by birthright and almost certainly just using Remus for a quick bit of fun. That was the kind of thing that people like Sirius did. But music room boy—he was lonely. Remus dreamt about reaching out to him, telling him that he was not alone in feeling so lost. He had not, yet.

So Remus said, “Don’t be fucking stupid,” and Sirius laughed against his lips and kissed him again, tilting Remus’ chin up with one hand. Sirius liked it like this, with him leaning over Remus and his legs either side of Remus’, the two of them close enough that they could do something more, if they wanted, but they never had. It was just kissing.

“Hey,” Sirius said, “there’s a party in the common room antechamber on Friday night. I know you never come, but—maybe just this once?”

“You know I won’t,” Remus said. Parties were a pain and Remus would always, without question, rather be studying. Anyway, James and Peter would be down at the party too, and Remus would have the dorm to himself.

“Boring,” Sirius said.

“I don’t see you complaining.”

Sirius hummed. “Well then, maybe while Jamie and Pete are at the party, we can…”

He didn’t have to finish the thought.

 

**sirius** @sblack  
party in gryffindor common rooms, 10 sharpish. no shirts no shoes no service (unless yr a hottie)

**sirius** @sblack  
door policy is byo or back the fuck off. puff&claw cricket teams and +1s welcome. no slytherins allowed.

**sirius** @sblack  
tweets go down in 5min. password is “hooligan.” write it down.

 

It did not feel good, Remus decided, to use Sirius for all he was worth, the way Sirius was almost certainly using him—but it certainly was cathartic. Sirius was back down at the party now, leaving Remus alone in his double-decker bed. Maybe it was Remus’ imagination, but this mattress was noticeably more comfortable than his own. The curtains were drawn, rich red fabric only letting some light through, casting everything inside a sickly sort of orange. Remus didn’t want to see himself in that colour, so he stayed beneath the blankets.

His peace did not last long. Someone turned up the music in the common room antechamber, downstairs but not far away enough that it didn’t filter up through the creaky old floors. The antechamber was strictly for sixth form, but Sirius opened it up to fourth and fifth when he threw parties, as the Gryffindor sixth form’s popular and posh had done before him. Whatever music was being played, it had a heavy beat and lots of synth and Remus hated it. He had started listening to the Smiths since hearing sad guitar boy playing their songs, and some of the other bands too, who he’d looked up from the lyrics. That was much nicer music. Remus wondered if sad guitar boy was in the music rooms now.

Before he knew it, Remus was out of Sirius’ bed and scrambling into his clothes, ducking out of the common room so that nobody noticed him, and running down to the music rooms. He’d never been caught sneaking out before, and he wouldn’t be, not this time.

The courtyard was pitch black. There was a waxing moon, first quarter. Remus pressed his back to the ivy and tried to still his heavy breathing. There, in one of the music rooms, was the sad boy with the guitar. He was playing the same song he’d been playing when Remus had first heard him, only this time he was stopping and starting like he was trying to get it right. Remus wanted almost painfully to go into the room, to say, “I’m sad too.”

Instead he retreated to the music room he was always lying in, the one with the old brown-wood upright and its yellowing ivories. In the dark, he pulled out the piano stool—he could hear the other boy fumbling with the instrumental section of his song—and opened the lid. When the boy with the guitar started playing more repetitively, Remus used his ears and his music intuition to pick out the chords and the melody.

The guitar stopped abruptly. Had Remus gone too far—was this an intrusion? But then it started again, a new tune, and an implicit invitation for Remus to keep going. The music was tonal and it wasn’t too hard for Remus to pick up the pitches. He wasn’t the most accomplished improvisor; once he had the melody to shape the harmony around he was able only to add a simple bassline in his left hand and three-note chords in his right. It was enough for sad guitar boy, though, who played louder, sang with less of a shake in his voice—Remus hadn’t even noticed the uncertainty before then. There really was nothing quite like knowing that you had someone on your side.

Then, a shout came through the courtyard. “Hey, Pete, there’s people out here!”

Without thinking, Remus ducked beneath the piano stool and sat perfectly still. There was no way anyone would see him through the window, high in the wall as it was, and he hoped guitar boy had the sense to do the same.

“Who’d be doing music at this time of night?” Peter said, laughing drunkenly.

“I don’t know,” James said. Remus knew it was James. “Sad shit too. Bet they’re Slytherins.”

Peter laughed at that, and James laughed too, and Remus thought he could hear a third voice, hitherto a silent observer, who must have been Sirius. Then the three of them kept walking and the laughter receded and the courtyard was quiet again, no-one looking on but the moon. Remus got to his feet, almost knocking the piano stool over, scrambling up and across the courtyard to the other music room. The door was open and swinging, an acoustic guitar lay out of its case on a rickety old plastic chair, and whoever had been playing it was long gone.

Remus put the guitar away and shut the door on his way out.

 

**KING JAMES XVII** @potterjamie  
which of u moody fucks is out here singing abt “a fond farewell to a friend” at midnight in the music rooms #hogwartsmysteries

**Lily Evans** @lilyinbloom3  
@potterjamie I like Elliott Smith’s music. Such a shame. Maybe you should listen to it properly and broaden your horizons.

**KING JAMES XVII** @potterjamie  
@lilyinbloom3 lily evans i would die for you when is your next debate at hogwarts

**Lily Evans** @lilyinbloom3  
@potterjamie On the 15th. Tell the rest of the debate team they’re going down ;)

 

As autumn shifted towards winter, it rained heavily and incessantly. Remus had never been bothered by the rain—in fact he almost felt happier in this weather. The battering and lashes of wind-driven water spray against the window of his dormitory distracted him, reminded him that there was more to this world than snogging Sirius Black in the empty common room antechamber because they were both running late for English and neither of them cared about Hamlet all that much. There was more, too, than hanging around the music rooms night after night and waiting for sad guitar boy to show up again and being disappointed every time, but Remus had not found it yet.

The rain let up on Saturday afternoon, one week after the party, and so Remus declared, “I’m going running.”

“Fucking lunatic,” James said appreciatively.

Remus grinned back at him. “Nature calls. Won’t be as wet along the forest path, anyway.”

“Sure,” Peter said. “But don’t expect our sympathy if you catch a cold. I’m not getting sick this close to exams.”

“I wouldn’t mind it,” James said, “just to get a replacement exam later on. Or even an estimate.”

It was farcical, because James was one of the top students at Hogwarts, even if he never acted like it. Remus might have said something, but Sirius chose that moment to emerge from the bathroom.

“Want some gum?” Remus asked, flicking the packet out of his shorts’ pocket.

Sirius looked down his nose at him, which was an impressive feat given that Sirius was an inch or so shorter than Remus. But he did not respond, so Remus held out the pack of gum in one hand and used his thumb to push one of the sticks forward.

“Why are you dressed like that?” Sirius said instead.

He had failed the test, but passed one unspoken. Remus was wearing a singlet and fairly minimal running shorts, and he was not stupid about the amount of leg he was showing.

“Why do you think?”

“God, could you two stop communicating in questions,” James said.

“Running?” Sirius said. “I’ll come too,”

“See you down there,” Remus said, and went on ahead. He wasn’t about to wait around for Sirius. He was not doing that anymore. It was a long way from their dormitory to the forest and the weather was just right for running, now. Remus would take advantage of that the way Sirius was no longer taking advantage of him.

But by the time he made it out of the castle and onto the vast lawn between stone and wood, the rain had started up again, a steady downpour if not a particularly intense one. Remus stood on the castle’s front steps and held his hands out. He shrugged, and set off.

Alarmingly soon after, Sirius joined him. Remus was not a slow runner, but Sirius was _fast_. He had changed into shorts too, although he wore his cricket jumper, and he had headphones dangling around his neck. Remus stood by the forest’s edge watching Sirius approach, watching how the thick rubber soles of his expensive trainers set off mudslides in the grass. Sirius wore his hair slightly longer than regulation; it was a dark brown but the rain made it his namesake, streaming behind him in the wind. His socks came up to his knees. Remus so keenly wanted to be him. He would settle for the second-hand experience.

“Thanks for waiting,” Sirius said, running past Remus and into the forest.

Remus took a few minutes to catch up. “Thanks yourself,” he said at last.

Sirius tossed a casual smile over his shoulder. Remus overtook him. They ran deeper into the forest, along a well-worn path still trod in inclement weather, under trees which shook great loads of water onto them whenever a gust of wind came through. At the part of the forest where the branches drew closer together and created some sort of shelter, Sirius stopped, resting one hand against a tree.

“Out of breath already?” Remus teased.

Sirius was breathing raggedly, but he still looked a picture. “Thought you might want a rest. What else did you lure me out here for?”

“I didn’t lure you anywhere,” Remus said. “I wanted to go running.”

“Come off it.”

“We’re not doing this anymore, Sirius. We haven’t been for a week.”

An expression like a looming thundercloud crossed Sirius’ face. “That’s because we’ve been busy. Or are you sick of me?”

“Seeing someone else, actually,” Remus said, because sometimes lying came so naturally to him that he forgot he was meant to be telling the truth.

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” Sirius looked almost offended now.

Remus shrugged. “Didn’t think this was exclusive.”

“Go on, then,” Sirius said. “What’s he got that I don’t.”

It lacked the cadence of a question, and something strange shifted at the back of Remus’ mind, an almost queasy feeling. A drop of rain made it through the leaves and landed right on his eyelid. Blinking in frustration, Remus said, “He knows what it feels like.”

“What _what_ feels like?”

Sirius punched the tree he’d been leaning against and set a great shower down on both of them.

“We play music together,” Remus said. He didn’t want to answer that question. “That night the three of you were drunk after the party and you were walking through the courtyard and James made some quip and you all laughed—I heard you, don’t think I didn’t. It’s not so easy for some of us, Sirius. I can’t just piss my problems away with a six-pack of alcopops.”

He would have gone on, but Sirius was gaping at him not. Remus felt uncomfortable under the weight of all that look carried and didn’t carry. He turned and kept running down the path, and he didn’t have to look back to know that Sirius wasn’t following him.

 

**sirius** @sblack  
is @potterjamie dating @lilyinbloom3 yet

**KING JAMES XVII** @potterjamie  
@sblack @lilyinbloom3 is @sblack dating @wolfboyrj yet

**sirius** @sblack  
@potterjamie @lilyinbloom3 @wolfboyrj ... remus has twitter?

**KING JAMES XVII** @potterjamie  
@sblack @lilyinbloom3 @wolfboyrj oh... my god......

**Lily Evans** @lilyinbloom3  
@potterjamie @sblack @wolfboyrj Why am I being @’d in this thread? Please untag me.

**sirius** @sblack  
@lilyinbloom3 @potterjamie @wolfboyrj ice cold

**R.J.** @wolfboyrj  
@sblack @potterjamie please block me

 

There was a full moon in the sky and the courtyard was unusually bright and this, Remus thought, this would be the night. He had waited until everyone was asleep to sneak out—Sirius had turned in particularly early and barricaded his four-poster with a sign saying to fuck off until exams were over. Remus hoped it was also partly his fault. And, like so many nights previous, Remus resumed his vigil, sitting on the piano stool with the lid open and his fingers hovering above the keys, waiting. Some nights, when sad guitar boy inevitably did not appear, Remus would play anyway, would try to remember the chords to the songs he’d heard guitar boy play. Other nights, he would not.

He was about to give up when he heard footsteps, a door opening, a guitar being tuned. Remus felt the hairs on his arms stand up in anticipation as the music began. He listened as the song began, softly at first, like guitar boy wasn’t familiar with it. His singing was more mumbling—Remus wondered if he knew the lyrics at all. But then he reached what must have been the chorus, strumming slowly, singing, “I see you, always struggling—to find a gentle song—”

Remus knew at once that this was not meant to be played on the guitar. This was a song for the piano, for the kind of simple chords he could play—he _had_ played, when he and the other boy had last played together. This was more than a call for an accompanist. It was an apology. So Remus answered, haltingly picked out the notes until he was following the music’s pattern and playing along.

The song finished all too soon; now it was too quiet. There was no piano in the other music room—if guitar boy wanted to reach out, he would have to come to Remus. And what could Remus do to bring guitar boy to him?

Fingers cold, joints stiff, Remus played a sequence of chords: A minor, G major, A minor, G major. He played them over until he felt comfortable singing. His voice wavered.

“Take me out, tonight—”

He heard a door opening.

“—where there’s music and there’s people and they’re young and alive—”

He heard footsteps, first on carpet then across the courtyard and then coming closer. Barely breathing, Remus stopped singing. This was it. This was his kindred spirit, his solace.

Then the door burst open and there was Sirius Black haloed in the light of the full moon, one hand of knuckles turning white as his fingers gripped the neck of an acoustic guitar. Accusingly he said, “You pretended you were dating someone you’ve never met to get me off your back!”

Remus let out a stuttered laugh. “You play the guitar.”

Sirius held the guitar forward, brandishing it like a cricket bat. “Of course I fucking play the fucking guitar! You’ve heard me! You’ve played alongside me!”

“I didn’t realise—”

“No, you thought I wasn’t deep enough to play sad songs,” Sirius said, his hysteria fading to a scowl.

“I’m sorry,” Remus said. He hoped it sounded as earnest as he wanted it to—he was knocked too far out of alignment by this revelation to feel too much, or maybe to feel at all. “The person I’ve always assumed you were is… very different to the type of person who plays sad songs alone at midnight in the deserted music rooms.”

“How would you know that?” Sirius demanded.

“Because I’m also that kind of person,” Remus said. “I’m sad and I’m lonely and I need to go somewhere quiet, sometimes.”

Sirius winced; this must have been too sharp an incision.

Remus continued, “I was under the impression that our relationship was purely, er, carnal, but if you want to incorporate feelings, somehow—”

“I want to keep—no, fuck it, that was going to be corny. Can we talk about it tomorrow? I don’t really feel like spilling my heart out right now.”

“Fine by me,” Remus said.

He made room on the piano stool for Sirius. Sirius put his guitar down on the floor and lent right into Remus’ space, kissed him, and Remus let his fingers roam Sirius’ too-long hair, the length of Sirius’ neck.

“Spearmint,” Sirius said. “Gross.”

Sirius was wrong; spearmint was the best, but Remus kissed him back anyway. With one hand, Sirius reached out behind Remus, trying to pull him closer—he missed and hit the piano keys, a dissonant cluster chord reverberating through the music room and out into the courtyard, breaking the solace of the music rooms.

Or maybe, Remus thought, he was just inviting someone else in.

 

**sirius** @sblack  
fresh tunes >> https://youtu.be/Btt2EoClcht << yours truly & @wolfboyrj covering “tomorrow, tomorrow”

**KING JAMES XVII** @potterjamie  
@sblack @wolfboyrj are u two dating yet

**R.J.** @wolfboyrj  
@potterjamie @sblack yes

**Author's Note:**

> The songs quoted/mentioned are “Tomorrow, Tomorrow” (“they took your life apart…”) and “A Fond Farewell” (in James’ tweet) by Elliott Smith, “There Is A Light That Never Goes Out” (“to die by your side…” and “take me out tonight…”) by The Smiths, and “Real Life Version” (“I see you always struggling…”) by Voxtrot. Because I was feeling indulgent, there is a simple cipher somewhere in this fic. Let me know if you work it out!


End file.
